Driving home from a downtown meeting I decided to stop in at Aladdin’s Baking Company on Carnegie to stock up on creamy French goat’s milk feta, kalamata olives, and spinach pies. Although they’re open for business, a major remodeling is underway. The new floorplan will devote more space to tables, making this equal parts grocery store, prepared foods market and cafe where you can sit down and immediately dig into their terrific chicken shawarma, felafel and gyro sandwiches, taboulie and fatoosh salads, bowls of lentil soup, and plates of grape leaves or hummus.

I also discovered that they’ve added a new bread to their line-up- light fluffy whole wheat nan. It’s delicous. A package of five big fresh rounds feels like a pillow and is priced at only $1.50.

Good questions. it IS confusing. Aladdin’s Baking Company has absolutely nothing to do with the Aladdin’s restaurants all over the region and the family that runs them (as well as Taza and Sittoo’s). But they are the ones that make the products like pita bread and baba ganoush that you see in grocery stores. The Aladdin’s Baking company I wrote about in my post (and on page 81 of my book Cleveland Ethnic Eats), also a family business, has just one address on Carnegie Avenue in Cleveland, near Prgressive Field and Gund Arena. Does this help clarify things?